The government is targeting the creation of 100,000 digitally enabled jobs within the next two years under its flagship One Million Coders Programme, Minister of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations Samuel Nartey George has disclosed.
He said the initiative was shifting its focus from training young people in coding and other digital skills to creating employment opportunities by connecting beneficiaries with businesses seeking skilled digital workers.
Speaking during a monitoring visit to the Ashanti Region, Mr George explained that although the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto committed the government to training one million Ghanaians in digital skills, President John Dramani Mahama had tasked the Ministry with ensuring that beneficiaries also secured employment after completing their training.
He said the government had presented the President with reports on the programme’s progress and remained confident of training one million Ghanaians within the four-year period.
According to the Minister, the government is now focused on developing a critical mass of skilled digital workers to meet growing demand for digital services, particularly from international companies seeking to outsource work to Ghana.
“We have shown His Excellency the trajectory the programme is on; we will cross a million in the four years. We are pivoting now away from the training into the job creation, and I am confident our target is to reach 100,000 digitally,” he said.
Mr George disclosed that the programme had already developed a pool of 10,000 data annotators whose skills could be presented to businesses looking for workers to undertake specific digital assignments.
His visit to the Ashanti Region formed part of efforts to assess the programme’s progress and evaluate its implementation at various training centres.
He visited training centres and artificial intelligence laboratories at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) before proceeding to other centres at Kwadaso, Asawase and Nkwantakese.
During the visits, the Minister interacted with beneficiaries, listened to their concerns and assured them that the issues raised would be addressed.
